The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more

Book Review: And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell

Book #240 of 2018:

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell

A short, powerful memoir about unplanned pregnancy, birth, early parenting, and postpartum depression. I really admire author Meaghan O’Connell’s sharp, matter-of-fact tone, which basically comes across as a more human version of Amy Dunne from Gone Girl. She is honest (and highly critical) about what she sees as her own deficiencies in adapting to the change in lifestyle, and although she loves her new baby unconditionally, she presents a thoroughly unromanticized look at the toll of it all on her body and her emotions. O’Connell is a jaded millennial New Yorker through and through, and her perspective is a valuable contribution to any discussion surrounding contemporary motherhood. I suspect many readers will relate more to this book’s more grounded take on the subject than to all of the super-positive mommy bloggers out there.

★★★★☆

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TV Review: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 2

TV #50 of 2018:

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 2

Not as tight a story as the first season, but I like that it immediately pushes forward new character-driven plots, especially for Paula, and that the status quo continues to get shaken up as the season progresses. And of course, the songs are as clever and catchy as ever. I laughed a lot this season, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this revenge plot takes the narrative next.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Ararat by Christopher Golden

Book #239 of 2018:

Ararat by Christopher Golden (Ben Walker #1)

This story of demonic possession and murder unleashed by the discovery of Noah’s Ark on an isolated mountainside is a solid paranormal thriller, sort of like Michael Crichton or Dan Brown crossed with early Stephen King. I would have liked a little more depth to the characters, some of whom we barely get to know before their untimely deaths, but the quick pace of the plot helps alleviate that to some degree. Author Christopher Golden’s major accomplishment here is in his claustrophobic icy setting, which was terrifically terrifying to read amidst bitter December winds.

★★★☆☆

[Disclosure: I’m Facebook friends with this author.]

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Book Review: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Book #238 of 2018:

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

This subversive Soviet satire, written in secret and only published after author Mikhail Bulgakov’s death, is wickedly funny and very creative, but it’s all a bit chaotic for my tastes. Given the sarcastic gun-wielding cat, the black magic of the literal devil, the gratuitous female nudity, and all the decapitations and other grotesqueries, I really need more of a coherent plot or even just a single character to root for.

I’m sure there are plenty of nuances that I’m missing due to my distance from the original context of Bulgakov’s allegories, but the surreal burlesque circus that unfolds across the novel generally leaves me a bit cold. I like the historical flashbacks featuring Pontius Pilate and other biblical figures better than anything set in the present, yet they too wear out their welcome for me before the end.

This is the weirdest book I’ve picked up in quite some time, and although I don’t love it myself, I can see why so many people do. It’s worth reading for sheer peculiarity, if nothing else.

★★★☆☆

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Book Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Book #237 of 2018:

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

This sprawling novel spans most of the twentieth century, following several generations of a family throughout their lives in Korea and Japan. The characters are very well-drawn in grounded detail, although as usual for this sort of saga, they tend to come and go over the course of the narrative and their different pursuits take the plot in a wide range of directions at various stages of the text. That’s not my favorite style of storytelling, but author Min Jin Lee spins out the drama masterfully and maintains a degree of focus by always keeping the family matriarch near the center. The historical backdrop is fascinating (and largely unknown to me), and I feel like I could have kept reading further well past the end.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

Book #236 of 2018:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter #6)

I love plenty of individual moments in this penultimate Harry Potter book, but if I’m being truly objective, its flashback-heavy narrative arc is a bit of a step down for the series. As usual author J. K. Rowling is juggling several different plots for this volume, but the main throughline of the boy wizard learning more about his enemy’s backstory features rather more exposition than action or personal growth. As with a running subplot about Harry suspecting a classmate of undefined villainy, there’s a tendency for the story to hit the same beats over and over again with little variation.

Against that backdrop, it’s the smaller scenes and character moments that have to carry the day — and by and large, they do. New professor Horace Slughorn is an interesting addition to our understanding of Slytherins, Harry’s mentor relationship with Dumbledore gets developed most poignantly, and the titular mystery over a former textbook-owner is a delightfully small-stakes throwback to the early Potter novels. Even the teen romance angle works better for me than I know it does for some readers, and I do enjoy learning more about Lord Voldemort’s origins, even if the delivery method can feel a bit a clunky at times.

When this story finally kicks into gear in its last few chapters, the result easily matches the best moments of the rest of the series. I wish that Rowling could have maintained that level of quality throughout the whole novel, but unfortunately the cracks in her endgame are already beginning to show.

★★★★☆

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Book Review: Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Book #235 of 2018:

Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House by Omarosa Manigault Newman

In the burgeoning genre of inside accounts of the 45th presidential administration, this one from President Trump’s longtime associate Omarosa Manigault Newman covers relatively little new ground. It also feels aimed at a very particular sort of contemporary audience already familiar with the major news stories of the past few years; future readers may well feel adrift amid the many issues, events, and personalities that are brought up with little explanatory context.

This book’s most valuable contribution for me is its discussion of Donald Trump’s pre-political days, especially in his work with the author on television shows like The Apprentice. That’s a section of the president’s life that I’m not overly familiar with, and Newman’s perspective is helpful for contextualizing his career and how he’s changed over the past decade and a half. Even here, however, it’s hard to look past the author’s own oversized personality, including her penchant for conspiratorial thinking and frequent rush to shift all blame onto other shoulders.

Omarosa’s boldest claim in this book is that she’s witnessed a significant ‘mental decline’ in her friend Donald, but given the overall gossipy and vengeful tone of her writing, that’s something that should probably be viewed with a great deal of skepticism. It certainly doesn’t match the other (equally unflattering) reports that are emerging about this White House, and further suggests that this particular account may live up to its title after all.

★★☆☆☆

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Book Review: From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars by Virginia Hanlon Grohl

Book #234 of 2018:

From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars by Virginia Hanlon Grohl

Author Virginia Hanlon Grohl is the mother of Dave Grohl from the bands Nirvana and Foo Fighters, and although she seems to have enjoyed getting to know and interview other musician moms for this project, that experience unfortunately doesn’t translate into an especially gripping read. The short biographical stories that Grohl has produced generally have no more depth or style than a typical magazine puff piece, and her overall presentation never really adds up to any substantial argument or narrative. I’m glad that the musical artists covered in this book are more diverse than its title would suggest — ranging from Miranda Lambert to Dr. Dre to HAIM — but I haven’t gotten much out of hearing about any of their childhoods.

★★☆☆☆

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Movie Review: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Movie #20 of 2018:

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

This musical biopic of Queen singer Freddie Mercury is much better than I expected it to be. I’m not super well-informed about the actual history of the band, but it seems like the movie sticks pretty close to the facts. I’m especially surprised – quite pleasantly so! – that Freddie isn’t white-washed or straight-washed by the movie narrative at all. He’s quite explicitly presented as a queer man of color, and a lot of the difficulties he faces over the course of the film tie directly to his struggle to find/make a place for himself in society. I only went to see this in theaters because it was what my family wanted to do the day after Thanksgiving, but it definitely exceeded my expectations by a lot.

★★★★☆

Book Review: Strange Weather by Joe Hill

Book #233 of 2018:

Strange Weather by Joe Hill

These four novellas from author Joe Hill are of mixed quality, but the collection as a whole is well worth the price of admittance.

SNAPSHOT: A thirteen-year-old boy learns that his neighbor’s dementia has been caused by a sinister man whose magic camera is stealing her memories. This is one of those Hill stories that feels like an homage to his father Stephen King, but it never really goes anywhere unexpected. ★★★☆☆

LOADED: By far the stand-out entry, this depiction of a mass shooting and its aftermath is a chilling critique of the trust we put in security services and the idea of a good guy with a gun. This is one of the best things Hill’s ever written, but it comes with a major content warning for gun violence and domestic abuse. ★★★★★

ALOFT: An anxious skydiver lands in a solid cloud, and things only get weirder from there. This isn’t really my kind of narrative, but it’s well-executed and presents an interesting look at romantic entitlement. ★★★★☆

RAIN: This last novella is a solid post-apocalyptic story about razor-sharp crystalline needles raining from the sky, although the irreverent tone feels like an odd fit. Hill says in the Afterword that he intended it as a spoof of his usual style, and while this doesn’t quite work for me, other readers might like it better. ★★★☆☆

Overall book: ★★★★☆

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